1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of teleworking, particularly, but not exclusively, in association with a call centre having switching system, e.g. a Private Automatic Branch Exchange (PABX), associated with an Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) system, such combination being referred to herein as an ACD suite, and to call control apparatus for use with, or in combination with, an ACD suite to provide a teleworking facility.
2. Related Art
With the increasing use of telecommunications equipment in business, including telephones, facsimile machines, answering machines, and modems for data communications between computer terminals, there has been a similar increase in the number of employees who are equipped by their employers to work from home. The employer may pay for an additional exchange line at the employee's home for business telephone use, or the employer may arrange to reimburse the employee for business calls made on the employee's private residential exchange line.
In a call centre it is known to use an ACD system for managing the operation of a switching system, for example a PABX, sometimes referred to as a PBX. There are three types of call centre: those which exclusively receive calls (order taking, customer service, and the like), those which only make calls (telesales, market research) and those which handle both incoming and outgoing calls. In the first and third types of call centre an ACD system is used to distribute or allocate calls incoming to a PABX to a plurality of terminals. These terminals, known in the art as call centre agent positions or ACD turrets, are positions at which people, referred to herein as agents, respond to the incoming telephone calls, and are frequently in the form of a known workstation incorporating a computer terminal linked to a host computer and database system. In call centres which make calls to customers an ACD system can be used to allocate to agents outgoing calls made to targetted customers (i.e. customers selected by the call centre to be the target of, for example, a telesales attempt).
Thus the distribution control systems used for each of the three types of call centre are all referred to in the art as ACD systems since they all respond to the handling by the PABX of an external call to connect the external port (line card) for that call to the internal port (line card) for a turret selected in accordance with the ACD program and to measure the activity at that selected turret to provide data input for data recordal and analysis by the measurement statistics package of the ACD system.
Examples of the use of an ACD suite are Given in the article "Call Centres Doing Business by Telephone" by Martin Bonner, The Journal of The Institution of British Telecommunication Engineers, Vol 13, Part 2, July 1994.
As is known, the ACD system may be programmed from its supervisor position by a supervisor to allocate incoming calls to the agents in a specified manner, for example, calls can be queued and distributed or allocated to the first agent to become ready to accept another call, or where several agents are ready, to the agent who has been ready the longest, or "forced" to an agent whose call handling rate is less than a predetermined limit. The measurement statistics package can determine, for example, the number of calls received, when they are received, how long it took to answer a particular call and how long it took an individual agent to deal with a call and how many calls were dealt with by an agent in a particular period.
ACD is generally performed by an "intelligent" PABX, that is a PABX incorporating an additional processor coupled to its call processing system to provide increased functionality, and in this case the ACD system can be considered to be an integral part of the PABX. In other cases the ACD system can be a physically separate item and linked to a "non-intelligent" PABX. Both arrangements are embraced by the term ACD suite.
A trend to increase the flexibility of working hours has meant that agents may not have their own individual terminal but may use any vacant terminal. Thus a terminal may be shared by two or more agents. This requires the ACD system to be aware of the identity of the person using a particular terminal in order that any measurement statistics can be ascribed to the correct person and this is achieved by the agent logging on to the ACD system via the terminal or via an associated computer terminal and host computer where there is an link to the PABX.
A further trend has been to increase the number of agents who will work either from their homes or at a convenient branch office and remote from the ACD suite or host computer. Such an agent is referred to herein as a teleworking agent.
WO-A-89 03146 (Ambassador College) discloses a computer-controlled ACD suite for distributing incoming calls to selected ones of a plurality of teleworking agents. At the start of a shift, the system retrieves from storage a set of telephone numbers, corresponding to a group of teleworking agents, controls outgoing line circuits to make a respective call to each teleworking agent, who answers with a log on procedure for identification. A teleworking agent who wishes to work that shift sends an accept message to the system which then marks that agent as ready for an incoming call. When an incoming call is received at an incoming line circuit, the system controls the line circuit to answer the incoming call, selects one of the ready teleworking agents, connects the incoming line circuit to the corresponding outgoing line circuit, and records the time. The system also records the end of the call (either when the caller hangs up, or upon receipt of an appropriate message from the teleworking agent). In one version of the system the teleworking agent stays on the line between calls and is sent a prompt tone just before the system commands the connection of the next incoming call to that teleworking agent. In another version, the teleworking agent is disconnected between calls and the system re-establishes the teleworking agent as an operational member of the shift as part of the sequence of operations for responding to an incoming call.
An ACD suite such as Ambassador College's suite is designed particularly for situations where the whole of the agent work force is teleworking and works in different shifts in different time zones, and in such a case there is no need for, and no provision for, a local group of agents disposed with the ACD suite, and forming part of the agent work force.
In contrast, the present invention is concerned with the problem of providing a teleworking facility in an ACD suite designed for a local work force of agents at a call centre.
One way of tackling this problem is disclosed in EP 0 622 938 A (AT & T Corp.), in which the ACD suite is coupled to a server which communicates with a teleworking agent via a data network. When a teleworking agent wishes to work, he makes a data call to the server and logs on in a conventional manner If the call is from the agent's normal location the server commands the switch to mark the teleworking agent logged in on the standard telephone number, and reports log in accepted to the teleworking agent.
When in the course of normal operation of the switch a teleworking agent is selected to deal with an incoming call, the switch marks that agent as busy and sends an event message to a management information system (which includes a statistics package for measuring the work performance of the agents) to indicate that the teleworking agent is busy on a call. The switch now retrieves the associated telephone number and routes the incoming call to the teleworking agent. When the teleworking agent answers the call, an event message is sent from his work station via the data link to the server which informs the management information system and the switch. When the teleworking agent disconnects from the caller, the work station sends a call ended event message to the server which informs the switch and the management information system of the ACD suite of this event. The teleworking agent will send various messages via the server to a host computer of the ACD suite to perform appropriate after call work relating to the nature of the call (e.g. recording the outcome of an accounts enquiry), and when this is complete, the teleworking agent will send a request to be made available signal to the server which informs the management information system that the teleworking agent is now available. The management information system informs the switch that the teleworking agent is available, and the switch now marks the agent as available for another call.
The above AT & T ACD suite is a typical example of an ACD suite which reroutes an incoming call to a remote location via an outgoing exchange line using a call diversion or similar facility, the result of which is that the ACD suite does not know when the teleworking agent answers the call (the ACD suite obtains this information from an event message from the work station) and likewise does not know when the teleworking agent ends the call (again, the ACD suite obtains this information from an event message from the work station).
It is known from EP-A-0 520 483 (Siemens Aktiengesellschaft) for an authorised person to use the facilities of a private branch exchange (PBX) from a network telephone external to the PBX, in particular recording the charges incurred for use of the public telecommunications network for calls involving the authorised person. In one embodiment, the authorised person makes a first call to the PBX by dialling the number of an assigned PBX extension. The PBX receives the call on an incoming line and in the normal manner connects the exchange line interface circuit (LIC) to the corresponding extension LIC for that assigned number, which is not provided with an extension telephone. If that LIC is in service and not marked busy, the PBX sends a free-line signal (ringing tone) to the authorised person who then goes on-hook to end that call. In the PBX a control unit responds to the calling of the assigned extension to access a table, retrieve a callback telephone number associated with the assigned extension number, and, for an integrated services digital network, deem the caller as authorised if the received calling line identity is found to be the same as the callback number (the callback number being the telephone number of the authorised person). The control unit now makes an external call (referred to as the second call) in known manner, sending the callback number to the local exchange of the public telecommunications network, and upon answering by the authorised person begins to record charging information (metering pulses) provided by the local exchange or to calculate the call charge by reference to duration and applicable tariff.
When the authorised person answers the second call, he dials the telephone number of a person with whom he wants to be connected (the desired person). This number is received by a signalling interface unit of the PBX, and in response the control unit makes another external call (referred to as the third call) in known manner, as before to the desired person. When the desired person answers the third call, the control unit connects the two external LICs via the PBX switch and begins to record charging information, or calculating the call charge, for the third call. The charging information associated with the second and the third calls is recorded in a memory assigned to the authorised person.
The PBX of the Siemens disclosure is similar to the rerouting (call diversion) arrangement of the AT & T arrangement, except that the diversion number is not already known to the PBX but is provided by the authorised person in the second call, and that both calls are originated by the PBX rather than just the diverted call.